Blood Drive to be held Monday

Published March 22, 2014

Palo Alto High School students will have the opportunity to donate blood to the American Red Cross in the Social Studies Resource Center all day Monday, according to the organizers of the event.

The blood drive will be run by seniors Andrea Clerici-Hermandinger and Hillel Zand, who ran similar blood drives in the spring and fall of 2013.

Students interested in donating should look at the weight and height requirements as this sometimes a problem for girls, according to Clerici-Hermandinger. Other requirements include the student’s health status. Donating should take around 45 minutes, according to Clerici-Hermandinger.

“[In order to donate] you have to be generally healthy, not use certain medications and not have traveled anywhere malaria-prone in the last year,” Zand said.

Students must be at least 16-years-old in order to donate and those that are 17 or older are not required to fill out a waiver. The only other difference from the earlier blood drives is that 16-year-olds have to turn in the waiver before the day of the drive, according to Zand. This waiver can be found on the Red Cross website.

As a reward for donating, each donator will receive a prize, according to Clerici-Hermandinger.

“Last semester we gave out t-shirts as a thank you, however this semester with the weather heating up we will be giving a coupon for a free pint of ice cream for those who donate,” Clerici-Hermandinger said.